Wolfgang Spahn / Uncovering The Invisible

Berlin based Austrian artist Wolfgang Spahn introduces the analogue aesthetics and techniques that lay at the core of most of his multimedia installations. Starting in the 1990s with modifications of the classic photo slide Spahn decided to stretch the boundaries of slide projections by adding coloured liquids, using magnetic coils or merging sound and visuals. For the installation 'Pictures at an Exhibition', which is an homage to M. P. Mussorgsky, Spahn developed the 'Picture Disc', a transparent miniature picture based on chemical-magnetic experiments with liquid iron. Spahn's aesthetical approach focusses on the idea that analogue slide projections allow for uncovering (almost) invisible pictures that may even be performatively created in the very moment of their presentation. Also, by filming the slide projectors, amplifying their sound and implementing both aspects in his installations he visualises the importance of the machine as an integral part of the art – an artistic reference to Vilem Flussser's concept of the 'apparatus'.

About Wolfgang Spahn

Wolfgang Spahn is an Austrian-German visual artist based in Berlin. His work includes interactive installations, projections, miniature-slide-paintings and light sound performances. His art explores the field of the contradiction of analogue and digital media. At present he is researching the materiality of the digital and virtual world. Spahn studied mathematics and sociology in Regensburg and Berlin. He currently teaches at the BBK-Berlin/ Medienwerkstatt and is associated lecturer at the University of Paderborn/ department of art as well as at the University of Oldenburg/ department of art and visual culture. International exhibitions (selection): 2000 Biennial of young Art in Genua, Italy; 2003 The Kosovo Art Gallery in Pristina, Kosovo; 2005 Biennial in Prague, Czech Republic; 2008 and 2009 Internationales Klangkunstfest in Berlin, Germany; 2009 The Art of the Overhead in Malmö, Sweden; PIXEL09 and 13 in Bergen, Norway; 2010 Biennial Of Miniature Art in Serbia; 2010 Media-Scape in Zagreb, Croatia; Transmediale 2012 and 2014, Berlin, Germany; Musrara Mix 2015, Jerusalem, Israel; Bodenlos – Vilem Flusser und die Künste, Akademie der Künste, Berlin.

Marco Donnarumma / Aesthetic and politics

There is a tendency in art and technology artworks to equate the artistic value of an artwork with its level of displayed beauty and uncritical engagement. This implies discarding the political aspects that are implicit to art and technology; it means to isolate artistic practice in a limbo of disillusionment. However, to be fully aware of the political value of art and technology practice means – for artists, curators and audiences – to gain a means to actively change the way we understand the relations of human bodies and technology. In this talk, Marco will discuss how aesthetic and politics can be integrated into a culturally aware artistic practice by describing a legacy of art and technology artworks, including some of his own latest pieces, spanning 50 years of practice.

About Marco Donnarumma

Marco Donnarumma is a performance artist, sound artist, musician and writer. He has played interactive music by amplifying sounds from his body, has induced visitors in altered states of self-perception by feeding sounds from their bodies back to their skulls and bones, has immersed audiences in multichannel sound and video produced by the strain of his muscles while he pulled 50Kg stones, and has physicalised digital viruses in the body. He uses human bodies and machines as materials. Working with biophysical media, that is, biomedical technologies, sound devices, computer software, sensor and transducers, he creates artworks where human bodies and machines extend, transform or disrupt each other. His live performances, concerts and installations are renown for combining rigorous science, technical sophistication and critical concepts into intense live experiences.